Monday, January 21, 2013

Physics Is Fun?

I've posted something on this topic before, and I'll continue to do it. I always like to highlight classes and/or teachers that go beyond what they have been asked to do and try to make a physics lesson more interesting and more engaging to the students. This is one such example.

Montgomery's physics class is certainly not what one would think of as a traditional classroom.

Yes, there are lectures. Yes, there is homework. But there's also a lot more that this group of seniors gets to experience.

"The fun thing about older kids, they're still kids," she said. "They just want to play."

I also like the observation that she had on her students.

The hands-on activities help students relate to what they are studying. But even that doesn't always make it easy.

"They
still struggle. When you go to paper and pencil, it helps that they
have that interest. But they have to apply the math," she said. "Physics
is hard."

In the past, almost no one took physics at the high school level. Until the State of Ohio stepped in and gave it a boost.

"They
made it so you have to have physics to get an honors diploma. Our
numbers practically doubled after that," she said. "They might not be
excited to take it, but they find something about it that is interesting
to them."

Being that the class is generally made up of some of
the brightest students in the senior class, Montgomery said the students
don't always deal well with struggling to understand the difficult
subject matter.

"They still think that because they're good at
everything else, they expect to get every question right the first
time," she said. "I still have to go back and look at questions more
than once sometimes."